A RARE form of HIV caused the first known case of AIDS. This suggests that
the virus crossed to humans from an animal reservoir on more than one occasion,
says a team of scientists in Norway.
Virologist Bjorn Grinde and his colleagues at the National Institute of
Public Health in Oslo found a version of the HIV-1 virus called group O in
tissue from the victim, a Norwegian sailor who died in 1976. The most common
form now is group M.
By analysing the viral DNA sequences, Grinde determined that the two groups
had a common ancestor more than 100 years ago. 鈥淚f it was the same crossover, it
happened last century,鈥� Grinde said at the Eighth European Congress on
Biotechnology in Budapest last week. He says this is very unlikely to have
occurred.
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